Mine to Keep
by conie992
Summary: With Christine gone, Erik leaves and come to a dead-end, until on night at an abandoned house changes everything.
1. Chapter 1

Mine to keep

"_She was never mine to keep"_

Erik~

I never really understood that night, or why I took that midnight walk, but it changed my life forever.

Christine had felt,and I after that my life was never the same. I suddenly gained back all of my repressed emotions from my past, and I found that even I wasn't immune to the sickness called loneliness. Sure I had been lonely all my life before, but things had changed now. I had now been infected by loves touch and without its presence there grew holes in me. I moved away after Christine fled , I couldn't stand to stay at the opera. It's very walls held her presence and the memories I'd rather push to the farthest corners of my mind. I wanted to go as far as possible from my past. I left and just kept going, I never really knew to stop. I never stayed in one place for more than a few hours before continuing on. I ended across the country in Les Baux-de-Provence, a small mining town of around three hundred. Nestled in the Alpilles , it was here I had decided to end my life. I couldn't take the consent missing pieces and how my mind seemed lost in itself. My life was empty and I was tired.

There in the towns abandoned castle I decided to end my life when the sun rose. In its shadow I would stop the pain and kill the ghosts that tormented me in the absence of my heart. That last night, sleep eluded me, as it had for the past months. I wanted to experience night's misunderstood beauty one last time before I faced hellfire. I scoured the town examining its residence and there petty lives. They were blissfully ignorant to the tragedies that happened everyday on the same earth. My gazing ended an abandoned house standing in a valley under rocky slopes. On closer inspection I found that it was freshly evacuated. I reached to open the door, and almost stepped on a small bundle. I inspected it and found a child.

It was pale and very sickly looking, I had know idea how long it had been left abandoned, but the sight sickened me. I saw myself in the child. Lost, abandoned, cast aside and unwanted. The child made no movement or sound and for a brief spell I thought it to already be dead. Then it looked at me, and in that stare I saw true cruelty of the world. I had been beaten, but my face had always provoked such tortures and caused people to want to hurt me. This child was perfect, and yet someone thought themselves as God and condemned it to die. In that moment I was changed forever, my suicide mission aborted, I took the child back to my rented room and tried to revive it. That was the start of one of the best chapters of my life.

( Updated)


	2. Chapter 2

Paola~

Shadows were my friend that night. I had to give Anna up, it was the only I could continue my escape to England and hopefully some new life. I hated to leave her, she was all I had left of Francesco, but he couldn't care, he was dead. Back in Italy, both my husband and I were con-artists. We scammed businesses all over the country, until we were caught. Francesco was killed on sight, and I sent to prison. I barely escaped, but that didn't matter now. I left Anna on different house steps every night, hoping someone would find her and take her, but they never did. I had made up my mind that she would have to be done with if I was going to finally be free. I had left her, but not before I saw him. That man, in the mask, he found her. It was hard to follow him, sense told me that should leave as soon as possible, but I had to say goodbye. 

I waited until he was safely inside the building and then wrote a quick note. I knocked and scattered, never again to look back on the little girl I left behind.

Erik~

I searched for the owner of the note, but I knew she would be gone. The words were hastily written and the paper was crumpled, but its message was clear. "_God have mercy on my soul and may she be blessed ~ Paola" _I would later look over that note for hours on end, wondering about the past that brought Anna to me. I never remember naming her that, her very being just screamed that name. I didn't have time to ponder it anyway, she took over my existence. 

I decided to purchase the abandoned house I'd found Anna at, and raise her there. It was shocking really, I the Opera Ghost, terror to performers and managers alike, acting like a father. I never really understood it at first either, I just knew I needed to be there for my little girl, which she quickly became. It seems now that I was meant to find her, and change both our lives forever.


	3. Chapter 3

Erik~

The next month flew by for me, fixing the house, and taking care of Anna. I never knew what being a father would be like. After all, I never expected to become one. I never expected it to be so consuming, all my thoughts were on Anna.

Even from her first months, she made one point clear. She hated my mask, and was always eager to tell me. My God, she had a pair of lungs. That point both irritated me, and cause me joy. At the end of long days, those lungs weren't really what I wanted to hear. They did however show the promise of singing later in life. They were also a good sign that her near death experience hadn't destroyed her health completely. The first week I had her made me scared with every second.

The first week hadn't showed hope. She hardly ate, and was already severely underweight. She never made a sound, and slept most hours of day and night. I hardly left my seat at her side, afraid I would see her steady breathing stop altogether. No child should ever be treated the way she was. Even my own mother hadn't condemned me to death, without a fight chance. Her first upset sounds about my mask had me thanking whatever being existed above me for the possibility at her being healthy.

Being a father was a disease like love, I never thought I'd be granted it, and it change my life. I longed for the days when she would being to interact more. This girl loved me, because well I didn't know she just did.

Living alone most of my life meant I never really knew the kinder points of life. The first time Anna fell asleep in my arms curled to my chest told me how much I'd missed. That scene was not one I would put a disfigured murder taking part in. For the second time in my life, wondered if I could be more than that. But this time there were no Opera Ghost legends and Viscounts to stop me form being more. From being, in a very real sense, a new person.


	4. Chapter 4

_Twenty years later_

_Anna~_

The dew on the grass was cold that morning of my birthday. Fall would be setting in soon, and I welcomed the cold with open arms. Winter brought short days filled with music and papa's stories. I loved the excuse the cold gave me to stay inside and just think. That was I did every morning before the day began, but winter meant I be alone in my mind all day. I had made a ritual ever since I was pushing seven of coming to ridge under the abandoned castle in the mountains. The ridge wasn't very large but still concealed me and gave me a few moments of solitude away from the world. I learned when papa usually woke up and left about an hour before hand.

I was reluctant to leave today, this birthday wouldn't be like other years. I had made a point to papa that we should celebrate his birthday with mine this year, because he misplaced the date. That was last week , and ever since that day he's been in a depressed daze. I can't tell whats wrong with him and that fact scares me. I can read my father like an open book, and his melancholy the past week has me thinking.

Erik~

Anna I'm sure believes that I don't about her sneaking off every morning. That first morning I felt her very presence leave the house and followed her. There are few habits of my daughters I don't know about. I've never told her about what I know, there are a lot of things I keep from her. Anna has always seemed to live in a different world then the rest of mankind. She blossoms in solitude, and only seeks company when I want to see her. All of the time expect in winter. Then she absorbers company and lives to see the faces of others. She had always been odd like that, but I wouldn't want her to ever change.

She loves music, but then her whole life I've been her only point of reference for life. My face is normal for her, and I dread for the day when reality catches up with us both.


End file.
